Old thread, but worth the revisit. Strongly suggest you find a good realtor. These days the good ones have a list of clients and often they send texts to them before the house ever hits the market.
A very informative site to get information about living in Sun City Arizona is the RCSC FAQ(Frequently Asked Questions) site. Great for prospective buyers and some that just want more information: http://suncityaz.org/rcsc/faqs/
Most consumers do not understand that Zillow along with several other real estate search sites are mainly and foremost advertising sites for real estate agents. Advertising fees paid by real estate agents is how these sites generate income. The lure is that the sites have decent search engines for the consumer to get information on properties. Ratings of real estate agents mean nothing other than the amount of money the agent has paid to get their name in front of you. We are not talking about small change here. I know of one agent alone that in years past paid close to a million dollars in one year here in the Phoenix area. There is other potential misleading features of the sites that create problems for the unsuspecting consumer but we'll save that info for a future date.
Just for fun, I checked the valuation of my own home here in Sun City. Zillow = 241.818 Realtor.com = 227,200 Redfin = 236,785 I sure wish we could get the reverse mortgage issue settled here in Sun City. Might come in handy some day.
Redfin appears in most cases to be the most accurate. Redfin is an actual national full service real estate firm that is high tech and has the best search engine currently available.
Yes....get a realtor that KNOWS Sun City ! I used Re-Max out of Phoenix and its ended up costing me in the near future (not the family trust) an extra $3500 impact fees when the Condo goes solely into my name....YIKES ! It could have easily been worked around with just a simple Joint Tenancy Deed at the time of closing if they simply had known the ropes here. So now my newer Car I need so badly has to wait , and SC has an extra $3500 coming that shouldn't really be theirs.
Actually, after looking at many, many houses/condos/apartments with or without an agent, YOU WILL KNOW when you find the right place. Probably as soon as you walk in the door. That's what happened to me and I couldn't be happier.